I mimicked SMAP singing last night. It was probably 5 seconds of gravelly warbling, but I'm still sorry I did it. Especially since I think I was mistaking SMAP for Southern All Stars, which I think I do a lot.

Let me now point out how much I love the gas mileage one can squeeze from a Jetta. Okay. Done.

It seems that Chris has struck on an absolutely inspired idea. The Crow needs to be watched in celebration of Devil's Night and Halloween proper. Tomorrow I plan on wandering by the grocery stores for cheap candy.

Owning a Jetta is more fun than owning a Mustang if only for the switchblade key that comes with it.

But car shopping and visits from Midlanders make for a hectic weekend. Well-- that and two games of Lord of the Risk (although neither played to completion).

Like RISK: 2210, there are a number of refinements to the original game that make things come together more smoothly and less randomly. Things like the event cards and the turn limit. Things like the fact that you're not allowed to horde reinforcement cards like we did back in college (Okay, first I'm turning these in for 35 reinforcements...).

Yet another example of revision and it's value on a 'thing.'

This month's Adbusters issue is about diet/manimal cruelty. I say "manimal" because the magazine includes the things we do to ourselves in the name of leisure and fashion as well as the atrocities we commit to animals. I flipped through the issue and then decided not to pick it up. A significant chunk of the images/photographs are no-holds-barred pictures of people and animals that have been exploited or in some way damaged by "the system."

And, although I am very sympathetic to this issue and would love an opportunity to have my worldview brought into question, I can’t stomach the imagery in the current issue long enough to have any sort of reaction any more meaningful than “yuck!”

This brings to mind a question:

How does this approach help their movement?

I am reminded of the Christian youths on the Diag here in Ann Arbor. They stand on milk crates and spout Fire and Brimstone and you know what I do? Laugh at them. Ignore them. Call them lunatics.

I, who share their philosophy, laugh at their extreme methods. I know that their methodology alienates more people than it reaches. I am aware that subtlety is required to subvert the unsympathetic to your views, no matter how righteous. That standing on a box and yelling only converts the converted.

Not all fundamentalists are Christian...

So when Adbusters' similar methodology chases away a reader desiring meaningful dialogue on the topic. Or when the feminist scares away the less aggressive women (to use a generalization).

What has been accomplished? Where is the value in that form of activism?

The Eggers book is coming slowly with too many things interfering with my reading time these days, but it's a hell of a ride.

Kidney stone. He describes the passing of a kidney stone in such detail and candor that I can't help but fear them and feel like I've alread been through the experience myself.

It also occurs to me that this book flies on it's candor and clever prose.

It makes me think about how McSweeny's is sold at the Shaman Drum. And how, perhaps I should wander by looking for it one of these days.

And if you don't swing by www.corporatemofo.com every once in a while, you probably should.

In celebration of the 8th trade going to the printer, I picked up the volume 6 trade of Jeff Smith's Bone this weekend when I also acquired my beautiful alternate dimension version of RISK.

I finished it last night.

Jeff Smith is fast becoming one of my favorite Comickers. It's gratifying to me to see something this good that works on so many levels and is perfectly appropriate for such a wide audience.

Jeff Smith writes simple characters in complicated situations. Situations that forge stronger people or even awaken the strength that was always there, but never tapped.

In a very real sense, Jeff Smith is doing similar things with Bone to what Miyazaki did with Nausicaa. And it is every bit as rich.

It is an extremely inconvenient thing that Lord of the Rings RISK is only 2-4 players where most of the social scenarios that I can envision will involve the need for 5 players.

Incidentally, I picked up the Lord of the Rings edtion of RISK this past weekend. It looks very fun. The game board is a map of the Middle Earth kingdoms and territories. The game pieces are:

• Orks, Dark Riders & Trolls for Red and Black
• Elfs, Men of Rohan & Eagles for Green and Yellow

Then there is a marker for the progress of the Ring Bearer from the Shire into Mordor. Once the Ring Bearer reaches Mordor, the game ends (as a sort of turn limit like in 2210).

It's rather impressive how just slapping interesting skins on a boardgame I traditionally hate makes me enjoy playing it.

First RISK: 2210. Now RISK: Lord of the Rings.

Also. This Friday past, Ed (who has no blog that I'm aware of), introduced me to the Mozilla Phoenix Project. It seems to only be available to Linux and Windows, but it takes Mozilla and strips out the crap. Leaving you with a much better browser as a result. I totally dig it.

Last night marked the half-way point in my first semester of Japanese; our unit two test. And yet another example of my choking on the oral half of the test. My only consolation being that sensei has heard me speak those same lines flawlessly in class (and my fair certainty that my oral test wasn't the worst she bore witness to).

Later that evening, I finished volume two of Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life and found it to be not nearly as consistently good as the first volume. Too much of it felt like filler that was trying too hard to be abrasive for the hell of it.

Still good stuff and I'll continue to read because of its rock-solid opening, but there are low points to Lust for Life.

Well, I finally got bored enough with the blah default blog layout to go out and find me a new template. Mebee someday I'll get bored enough of templates to design my own.

But I'd have to be pretty bored. Just sayin'.

In the slipped under the radar category, I find Glen Phillips has finally released his solo album titled "Alubum." Creative. But then again, the man can write and play songs like magic, so I forgive him.

It seems there are sceptics out there... Yes. The book club I attend is indeed named "Kick Ass Book Club." That is its proper name. KABC for short. For really real!

As a member of one "Kick Ass Book Club" (we only read books that kick ass, /btw), I began the new book for our November meeting.

The book unassumingly titled: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It is by a Mr. David Eggers-- of the McSweeny's fame.

It's a reasonably witty and self-referential accounting of the author's experiences raising his eight year-old brother when their parents both died within a month of one another when the author was twenty (hatachi).

It was out in 1998, and it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, so I'm imagining one could find it in one's library if one were interested.

Three bands have recently caught my attention: Ok Go, The Vines and White Stripes.

Ok Go actually opened for TMBG last year then they were in town and I remember not liking them then. Their album was released recently and Xian referred me to the single on mp3.com. Something in the past year seems to have changed about them or about me, because I like their single a lot.

The Vines are Australian and have been recently making radio songs. This I appreciate. Elsewise I would prolly never heard from them.

No idea who I owe the debt of knowledge for the White Stripes, everyone seems to have been talking about them lately. But I imagine Andrea or Collette mentioned them to me first. In any case, I have done a little research and decided I dig them as well.

This post was brought to you by Orpheus, in a roundabout sort of way.

Actually it isn't, which is what makes me recall the song (Sunday in the Park with George-- Stephen Sondheim).

Another fine feature of AA which I've been turned onto is Eastern Accents. They're a little meat bun shoppe about a block off of Main. They make things other than meat buns, but I care not for their sushi or bi bim bop! I want only meat buns!

But really, if your ever downtown Ann Arbor doing Japanese homework over your lunch hour you should drop by and have a curry beef bun. They're quite tasty.

Yesterday afternoon, in the Royal Oak Art Theatre, I witnessed what could possibly be the most impressive film I've ever seen (sometimes I get the feeling I say that too often for it to mean anything ^_^).

In a very real sense, Spirited Away is an artful weaving of myth and fairy tale imbued with the soul of a Hayao Miyazaki work. A modern day myth borrowing from myth and faerie tale with brashness and fluency that it all flows together and becomes a creature of its own.

Chihiro is a girl whose journey is very reminiscent of the Odyssey when Odysseus is forced to rescue his greedy crew members. She is a daughter trapped in another world last where she must eat of the land's food or fade-- Persephone. And when she leaves the city of spirits, she is told not to look back until she comes out on the other side of the tunnel. Which is a task given to Orpheus. A task he failed.

I am, admittedly merely scratching the surface of a work that is far too deep for me to give justice with the impressions of an initial viewing.

Let me just leave you with this, then:

It was incredible.

It's cloudy today. Very cloudy. And cool. And a bit on the damp side.

I totally dig rain and gloomy weather. Everyone goes in doors and peace prevails. Silence. You can always go out on a clouldy day and be alone.

Fall has always been the season where I feel most alive. There's no danger of overheating. But neither is it to cold to preclude doing things out of doors. Even when things are damp. It's cold enough that there's no overwhelming sense of muddiness. All the colors.

But most of all, it's the smell (yes, yes-- if there is a such a thing).

It's difficult to describe. There's a sort of crisp, tense smell to fall (and even winter). The smell of cool. The smell of cold. A smell that makes my chest thrum and my head swim. A smell that makes me feel alive.

It gives rise to the feeling that the only way I can express what's coursing through me is to explode. To cease to exist. To burn up with this energy.

And in such moments I know I'm not alone-- that I never will be...

Last week, after hearing that the final issue (#60) of Transmetroplitan shipped, I decided it was high time I get in on the action and went out to snag the first trade of the series.

I'm not so sure about the title as it sounds a little on the superheroey side, but after listening to a number of trusted sources rave about it, I decided to give it a go.

Transmet is the story of a mysanthropic journalist in a near-future distopia who is forced for legal reasons and want of cash to return to the city from his mountain paradise of an isolated cabin. He left the city because he hated it. To get some peace and quiet. To write.

Then when he got set up in his cabin, he found himself incapapble of writing anything. He had nothing to complain about. Nothing to make fun of.

So the story starts with him saying goodbye to his beloved cabin and rural life and setting out to return to the loathesome crowded cesspool he fled five years ago.

He's bitter. He's angry. He's a journalist.

The first volume of the comic is nothing short of morbidly entertaining.

I love it!